PHOTO: Shaheed Ebrahim gave up a career in investment banking to start his own tour guiding business. (Photo courtesy Shaheed Ebrahim)

Four years ago, Shaheed Ebrahim was an investment banker. But with the 2010 FIFA World Cup coming up he saw an opportunity to do something very different. Tour guiding was something he had a penchant for.

“I worked for the ICICI Bank of India based in South Africa,” said Ebrahim. “I was responsible for investments of high-net worth clients, helping people invest abroad.”

His first attempts at tour guiding were informal, just showing friends, family and friends of friends around. With the World Cup coming up, he considered getting more serious.

“People got to hear about me and started booking me,” said Ebrahim. “I started doing it ad hoc. It was a hobby at first, taking family and friends from the UK around, showing them off the cuff what I knew.”

Then he took it to the next level.

“With the World Cup six or seven months away my wife advised me to take a tour guiding course,” he said. He enrolled in the course offered by the City of Cape Town in October 2009 and finished it a few months later. He became a licensed guide with an official badge number. Bookings started to come in from word of mouth.

“My big break came at the time of the World Cup,” he said. “Hyundai had approached the Cape Town tour guide association. They were anchor sponsors of the World Cup. They brought in dealer principals. They had five coaches. I was given one coach to look after. That’s when I began doing it every day. I worked with Hyundai for 30 days.”

After that it was serious. He started his own company officially, calling it Escape to the Cape.

Ebrahim’s next big break came when he entered a competition held by South African Tourism to find the next Emerging Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year Award (ETEYA). To his surprise, he won.

“Wi-Fi in the coaches was a unique selling point,” he said. “We married technology and tourism.” The company also supplied charging equipment for computers, cell phones and tablets.

His victory was announced at the opening ceremony of Indaba 2012. He won a $10,000 cash injection into his business, access to a mentorship program and a powerful affirmation of his work.

After he won the award, he gained the notice of South African Tourism, which called on him to take care of many visiting journalists. The Wi-Fi in the vans was especially appealing to journalists who wanted to file stories, tweet and post pictures to Facebook as they were traveling.

Escape to the Cape handles touring in Cape Town, the Garden Route and anywhere within about a six-hour driving radius from Cape Town. It offers city tours, child friendly tours, Garden Route tours, extreme adventure tours and others.

A Cape Malay cooking safari takes guests to the colorful Bo Kaap district of Cape Town into one of the homes to have lunch or dinner with a local family.

“The ladies will help you cook your own meal,” said Ebrahim. “You can go into their house, see how they live, the way they make food and learn more about the Malay culture.

Another popular new product is a jazz tour, which is growing rapidly in popularity. “We go to African suburbs, meet jazz musicians, have meal in their homes, hang out and talk and later go to a jazz club,” he said.

Now four years after starting his business, he's at the top of his profession, a favorite of South African Tourism, who selects him to take care of its most challenging assignments.

Comments

You may use your Facebook account to add a comment, subject to Facebook's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your Facebook information, including your name, photo & any other personal data you make public on Facebook will appear with your comment, and may be used on TravelPulse.com. Click here to learn more.